I think that means he will dismantle the US Postal Service and sell parts of the business for $1 to his "business associates" (I have friends who own postal services!). Ditto the Dept of Education (I have friends who own for-profit schools!). The Dept of Energy (I have friends who own energy companies!). Dept of HHW (I have friends who own tenements and for-profit hospitals, and who make the 47% sing for their supper!). The FDA (I have friends who own drug companies!). The EPA (I have friends who pollute, with my permission of course!).

Well, that's certainly the MSNBC version, swallowed by folks who know nothing about the way economies and businesses operate. Here's a more rational look:

"When large-scale hostile takeovers appeared in the 1980s," Messrs. Holmstrom [MIT economist] and Kaplan [U of Chicago economist] write, "many voiced the opinion that they were driven by investor greed; the robber barons of Wall Street had returned to raid innocent corporations. Today, it is widely accepted that the takeovers of the 1980s had a beneficial effect on the corporate sector and that efficiency gains, rather than redistributions from stakeholders to shareholders, explain why they appeared."

In the 1980s, the resilient U.S. economy saved itself from becoming Europe. Bain was part of the rescue.

Arguably, the primary force that set off the 1980s upheaval in U.S. corporate restructuring was the deregulation begun by Jimmy Carter and continued by Ronald Reagan. Airlines, ground transportation, cable and broadcasting, oil and gas, banking and financial services all experienced regulatory rollback. Meanwhile, a competitive, globalized marketplace was rising. Management at some of America's biggest companies, confused by these rapid changes, found themselves sitting on huge piles of unused or poorly deployed cash and assets.

Thousands of Mitt Romneys allied with huge pension funds representing colleges, unions and the like, plus a rising cadre of institutional money managers, to force corporate America to reboot. In the 1980s almost half of major U.S. corporations got takeover offers.

Singling out this or that Bain case study amid the jostling and bumping is pointless. This was a historic and necessary cleansing of the Augean stables of the American economy. It caused a positive revolution in U.S. management, financial analysis, incentives, governance and market-based discipline. It led directly to the 1990s boom years. And it gave the U.S. two decades of breathing room while Europe, with some exceptions, choked.__________________________

Romney cleaned up the Olympics and turned a big deficit into a big surplus. Can you see Obama having done anything but doubling the deficit and maybe cancelling wrestling because it's unfair to women?

Here's a little more you won't want to hear, from the founder of Staples:

Who would make a better president: Someone who knows how to save a dollar on pens and paper or someone who knows how to waste $535 million on Solyndra? The truth is Mitt was not a typical investor. He was a true partner. Where some saw an unproven new business, he saw a store that could save people money. He recognized that efficiency creates consumer value. He never looked at Staples as merely a financial investment. He saw the engine of prosperity it could become.

Today Staples employs nearly 90,000 people. It has over 2,000 stores. Over 50 distribution centers. It is part of a competitive industry that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses get started on their own. For me, as a founder, it was the realization of a dream.

...Bright Horizons Day Care, a company that has transformed corporate day care. Most people didn’t give the business a chance. It went for five straight years without making a profit – but Mitt and Bain Capital stood by them. Mitt and Bain Capital believed in the vision. They understood how important it was for women to join the workforce and have on-site care for their children. It was an overdue revolution in the American workplace. Today the company employs over 19,000 people.

Where were they [Obama's people] when Bain Capital helped start Steel Dynamics, when most people had given up on the American steel industry? Eighteen years later that company employs 6,000 people.___________________

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